Geoffrey Ursell (March 14, 1943 – February 21, 2021)[1] was a Canadian writer, who won the Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1985 for his novel Perdue, or How the West Was Lost.
[2] Predominantly known as a playwright, Ursell's stage and musical plays included The Running of the Deer (1981), Saskatoon Pie (1982),[3] The Willowbunch Giant (1983), The Secret Life of Railroaders (1986),[4] The Rum Runners of Rainbow Ravine (1990), The Park (1994), Deer Bring the Sun (1998),[5] Gold on Ice (2003),[6] Winning the Prairie Gamble (2005),[7] The Walnut Tree (2010)[8] and Dead Midnight (2011).
[1] With his wife Barbara Sapergia and colleagues Bob Currie and Gary Hyland, Ursell was a cofounder of Coteau Books in the 1970s.
[1] In 1987, Ursell and Sapergia pitched a series to CBC Television called Midnight in Moose Jaw, a sitcom-variety hybrid set in a Prohibition-era speakeasy which would have centred around live performances by real comedians and musicians,[10] with Jenny Jones and Colin James as the guest performers in the pilot.
[11] He served as president of the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild and the Saskatchewan Playwrights' Centre, was writer-in-residence for the Saskatoon Public Library[12] and the Winnipeg Public Library, was an editor of the literary magazine Grain,[13] and taught literature and creative writing at the University of Regina.